Can you lift up your voice to the clouds…? questions Job’s ability to direct the clouds in a way similar to the question asked in verse 33b. The clouds are not ordered about by men. In 36.29 Elihu asks Job “Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds?” Lift up your voice means “shout out orders, call out commands.”

That a flood of waters may cover you is identical to 22.11b, but the context is different. In the Septuagint cover you is translated as “answer you.” The Hebrew Old Testament Text Project committee was divided between those preferring the Septuagint and those wanting the Hebrew text, which Revised Standard Version follows. Most modern translations follow the Hebrew. The line may be translated, for example, as “so that the rain will submerge you,” “so that rain will flood over you,” or “and cause the rain to drown you like a flood.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .